


Circling

by Shunkaha



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shunkaha/pseuds/Shunkaha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irving and Greagoir have had to circle around each other for years, striking a balance in rulership of the Ferelden Circle. The events before, during, and after Uldred's rebellion threaten to destroy everything they've built.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circling

**Author's Note:**

> This story operates on the assumption that one is pretty extensively familiar with the Mage Origin in DA:O, and all of the "secondary" characters who inhabit that Origin. I fell in love with Greagoir and Irving from the very first moment, and I've always felt there was a lot of really fascinating, subtle things going on there, character-wise - and this is especially evident when one reveals Jowan's plan to Irving and gets to hear his opinions on Jowan and Greagoir both, and see how he chooses to manipulate events. If you've never given it a try, I recommend it! 
> 
> I wrote all but the last few pages of this story before DA2 came out. I was pleased, upon release of that game, to find that I'd anticipated things so well. I finished the final pages between DA2 and DA:I, and after Inquisition I was relieved that what I'd written for Cullen didn't actually contradict anything new we learned. I like to think that this story still fits well into all the canon as we have it, even if 90% of it was written all those years ago.

**CIRCLING**

 

Greagoir’s temper always grew shorter when Wynne wasn’t around.

It wasn’t often that she left the tower, and the Knight-Commander was taciturn enough by nature that not even his senior templars were likely to notice, but Irving did. One didn’t rise to the rank of First Enchanter without a gift for insight, and he and the Knight-Commander had had quite a long time to grow familiar with each other’s foibles.

Though of course Irving liked to think _he_ was not so obvious about his weaknesses as to allow them to be easily exploited, not by his subordinates and certainly not by the templars. His career as First Enchanter was likely to come to an untimely end, were that so. The tower was not without its internal threats.

No. In the end, the greatest threats the mages faced were all internal.

And whether they realized it or not, the templars were not in so different a position. Was it not their own Chantry that poisoned them? Their own fears that imprisoned them as surely as it did their prisoners; two kinds of demon in the same cage? 

Greagoir denied it, of course. Greagoir was canny, for a man so steeped in steel and duty. He had crafted all sorts of excuses, over their years of argument, and clung to those he felt most foolproof with a tenacity that Irving conceded would have done him credit, if not for the fact that he also thought the excuses specious. In his more generous moments, Irving had to assume that Greagoir himself knew them for fallacy and facade, and merely could find no other way to justify his role.

In his less generous moments – usually after a Harrowing gone badly, as he watched young, shaken, but determinedly righteous templar squires cleaning the blood of one his apprentices from the floor of the Harrowing chamber – Irving thought the Knight-Commander blind. Small minded and blind. And a part of him, untamed by resignation or hard-won wisdom, hated the man for it.

But it was hard to hate, the older he grew, the more years that passed between them in their shared imprisonment behind these walls.

And it was hard to hate a man so obviously put out by the absence of an old woman’s scolding.

Wynne was the only one who could get away with scolding Greagoir, or any of the templars. Irving could command them, in most trivial matters. And despite their bravado, despite the reason for their presence in the tower, he knew that most of the templars feared him. But even the youngest and most callow of them would have balked were he to tell them to, say, stand up straight, mind the mud they tracked in, show better manners at table, respect the silence of the study, or show gentleness with the children. Admonishments arrogant templars would not have endured even from the First Enchanter they all accepted from Wynne. The first time a younger knight, new to the tower, showed her disrespect, one of his older fellows was likely to strike him a ringing blow to the helmet, or the head, with an apology to the white-haired mage.

Indeed, Irving sometimes wondered if Greagoir disliked Wynne’s absence because it meant the disciplining of subordinates fell back on him.

Now _that_ was an amusing thought. A leash on their leash holders. Trust Wynne to manage it.

Normally Irving took some small, vindictive pleasure in anything that served to raise Greagoir’s ire or discomfit their steel-clad guardians. On previous occasions when Wynne had left the tower – generally as mentor on a learning excursion for the younger mages, and always under templar escort – Irving had even called Greagoir’s attention to it. A few subtle jokes about the templars’ vows of celibacy were not beneath his dignity – at least not when there was no one else was around to overhear them – and they generally got a satisfactorily outraged reaction from the Knight-Commander. Even First Enchanters had to take what little amusements were allowed them.

But he couldn’t jest this time. It was no educational excursion which had called Wynne away from the tower now. 

“This is foolishness,” Greagoir proclaimed, the sound of his booted footfalls heavy as he paced the First Enchanter’s study; muffled but solid over the thick carpet, sharp and metallic as he pivoted on stone. The whisk of rich fabric against polished greaves, the chink of pauldron edges along breastplate, the creak of leather straps under strain – all sounds so familiar to Irving that they were as inseparable a part of the background tapestry that defined his life as were the murmurings of apprentices hard at work memorizing incantations, the scratching of quill nibs over parchment, the singing hum of magics gathering around a caster’s staff. 

Greagoir stalked back toward Irving’s desk, slicing at the air with one gauntleted hand. “Utter foolishness,” he reiterated.

“We’ve been over this already, have we not?” Irving said wearily. “It is too late to recall them. They’re halfway to Ostagar by now.”

“It’s not too late!” Greagoir slapped both hands down on Irving’s desk. The open ink bottle jumped and almost overturned, and a delicate crystal paperweight – a gift from the First Enchanter of the tower in Montsimmard – tumbled onto its rounded side and would have rolled off the desk entirely if Irving hadn’t managed to catch it. Greagoir seemed not to notice. “Send a message by some spell. Surely your accursed magic is good for that much at least!”

Irving tried to remind himself that the dignity of superior composure was a great thing to lord over one’s opponent.

He failed.

“A lifetime spent watching us, and you’ve learned nothing,” he snapped back. “If our magic were good for so little, there’d be no _need_ to send mages to the king’s service. And even if I could recall them through foolish waste of effort on some conversational cantrip, I certainly wouldn’t do so just to appease your sense of wounded pride. If you’re angry that your grand authority was overruled, take it up with the king.”

Greagoir leaned forward so heavily onto the desk that even the sturdy wood creaked slightly under his armored weight. Lined skin made pale from years within the tower walls paled even further with anger. “Is that what you think this is about? My _pride?_ ”

“Isn’t it?” Irving sat back in his chair, trying for nonchalance. “Or are you going to tell me it’s out of concern for the welfare of my mages?”

“ _Your_ mages?” Greagoir breathed. He looked truly livid.

But Irving was now in no mood to be charitable in interpreting the templar’s reasons for outrage, even if he did recognize the undertone of hurt in Greagoir’s voice. Given the circumstances, given too many circumstances, even Greagoir’s genuine sense of responsibility wasn’t enough.

“Indeed. If you’re so concerned about their well being, perhaps you should follow them to Ostagar.”

“If only I could!”

“Then for once we’re of the same mind.”

“And wouldn’t you be relieved to be rid of me.”

“Your words, not mine.”

“I know your crooked thoughts, Enchanter.”

“And I your petty protestations. All too familiar, Knight-Commander.”

“Bah!”

Greagoir pushed off the desk with such force that this time the ink bottle did overturn; a black pool spread quickly over the notes Irving had been making on the latest developments in Ian’s experiments in entropic studies. He sighed, but made no move to rescue the paper. He’d needed a new blotter anyway.

Greagoir was half-way to the door when he stopped. Irving wasn’t at all surprised. It would be terribly uncharacteristic of the Knight-Commander to give up on a fight so easily, or to leave without trying to get the last word in.

“Mark my words, Irving, this will end badly.”

“The battle?” Irving replied, feigning misunderstanding. “I hope not.” He did not, at least, have to feign the hope.

“Maker’s mercy,” Greagoir muttered. “What do you take me for? Of course I want the battle to go well. I _meant –_ ”

“I think I know what you meant, Greagoir. But I’m afraid I cannot agree with you. If this marks the beginning of closer cooperation between the Circle and the rulership of Ferelden, then I am glad for it. There’s a wider world out there, and we are as much a part of it as any. We should be allowed to _do_ our part.”

“Irving, I’ve never taken you for a fool. Don’t start now. You think it some kind of _blessing_ that they’ll throw mages onto the frontlines whenever it suits them? And templars, I might add. Where you go, so must we.”

“Don’t imagine I’ve forgotten that, Greagoir.”

“And don’t imagine that I’m not aware of what goes on in this place. You think I wouldn’t hear word of your _guest’s_ scheduled arrival?”

“Ah, so we’ve received confirmation on Duncan’s visit,” Irving said with calculated good cheer, and was rewarded by a deepening of the frown narrowing Greagoir’s eyes, visible even across the dimly lit room. “Excellent.”

For a moment Greagoir looked as though he were caught in some virulent contagion spell gone awry, swelling dangerously, and then he visibly deflated. He released a heavy sigh, his armor clanking with what might have been a shrug hidden beneath the bulk. “So be it. I’ll not argue with you further. Not today, at least.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” Irving said dryly.

But inwardly he was relieved. Let Greagoir think that Duncan was coming only to recruit more mages for the king’s army. Undoubtedly he would try to do so; the man was as relentless in pursuit of his duty as Greagoir could have hoped for any of this templars. It was a sad state of affairs in the world that Irving could feel more sympathy for the cause of a man he only rarely saw than he did for the templars he saw every day.

But it was more than sympathy that led him to give Duncan a standing invitation to the tower, in war time or no.

The Grey Wardens understood about duty, and about burdens. They, perhaps more than any other group of people in Thedas, could empathize with the mages’ plight. And more than that, they _respected_ mages, actively sought them out. Duncan had visited the tower in the past, always with an eye for recruitment of a special kind. Always before he had left empty handed, the mysterious measurement by which he considered possible Warden recruits gone unmet.

But Irving was always glad to see him return, always hoped that one day Duncan would find what he sought, and take one of the mages away with him. If that was the only way he could give one of his own their freedom, he would give them up to the Grey Wardens gladly.

And this time, Irving had someone specific in mind.

“I’m sure we’ll pick this up again, Irving,” Greagoir said now, resuming his march to the door. “For now, I suggest we both get some sleep. We have a Harrowing tomorrow.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Irving said, and though he’d meant his tone to be scathing, the melancholy in it took even him by surprise. He must be weary indeed, if he couldn’t control his own voice. Weary in many ways.

Greagoir shot him a final look over his armored shoulder. His eyes, too, showed weariness. “I didn’t think you had,” the Knight-Commander said, in as kind a tone as he could manage. It was sharp enough that Irving thought he might be the only one to even recognize it for kindness.

There was irony in that familiarity, of course. So much of life in the tower was irony, bitter and inescapable. He hoped that Wynne and the others were enjoying their moments of freedom from it all.

But more than that, he hoped that they lived to come back to it. 

  

~*~

            

Irving had set a rule for himself on the day he became First Enchanter: that he would never again voluntarily set foot in the Templar Quarters, except to pass through the stairwell to higher levels of the tower. It was not a difficult habit to establish, as most mages already stepped lightly there and moved as quickly as they could. Many never even had cause to do so except on the eve they ascended for their Harrowing.

But on the day he attained the rank of First Enchanter, it became more than just a matter of pride, and even less of fear. It became about appearances, power, authority. Dignity. The First Enchanter was ostensibly the master of the tower. If the only way he could exercise that dominion over the templars was to ignore the heart of their domain, to refuse to acknowledge it with his presence, then that was what he would do.

But today he was finding it difficult.

Greagoir was furious. Angrier, perhaps, than even Irving had ever seen him.

And he wasn’t coming down.

“You can’t go on like this,” Wynne said quietly. She remained seated in the chair beside him and did not touch him, but her voice alone was like a gentle hand on the arm, soothing and reassuring. The fire crackled in the hearth before them, its warmth heavy on their skin, and Irving felt an atypical desire to pull at the high collar of his robes, to let the tower’s stony coldness in.

“I can’t be held responsible for his foul humors,” he muttered, though he knew how petty it sounded.

“I’m afraid you can, Irving. You know that very well. It’s not fair, but so it is. You did it to yourself you know, in part. You made a reputation for yourself as the peace maker, and now you have to keep it. The apprentices are frightened, and the gossip is getting out of control. But it’s much worse now that the templars are getting nervous. They’re saying Greagoir hasn’t been seen in almost two days.”

“Hmph. But I’m sure the kitchen staff has been delivering meals. Wouldn’t do to have him starving himself. Not that I assume he’d do us the courtesy.”

“Irving,” Wynne admonished.

“Save the finger wagging, my dear. If you’re right that I have a responsibility to live up to the reputation I’ve crafted and the burden I’ve assumed, then _he_ has a responsibility to acknowledge how childish he’s being.”

Wynne murmured something, of which he only caught the word _childish_ over the crackling of the fire.

“I’ll pretend old age has made me deaf so that I won’t have to be offended by whatever aspersions you’re casting my way,” he said wryly, and straightened up from his slump, scratching at the side of his beard. Perhaps it was time to get it trimmed again; it _was_ getting a bit wild, even for a crotchety First Enchanter.

But it kept itching, no matter how much he scratched. It itched, and itched, and he scratched harder, growing increasingly frustrated – and then he woke up.

The fire had died down to a few sputtering, red hot logs, and an arm of his reading spectacles had slipped off his ear and was poking him in the cheek.

Irving sighed and straightened from his slump in reality this time, a much more painful task in the waking world as old bones protested the carelessness of falling asleep in such an awkward position. The book he had been reading slid off his lap as he did so, thumping onto the carpet. A lifetime of instinctive care around books had him bending down immediately, bodily protests ignored, to pick it up before the thick pages could be bent beyond straightening. Then he removed the spectacles he would allow no one to see him wearing and placed them on the closed book cover at the foot of his chair. Resting into the chair back, he rubbed wearily at his eyes.

Of course it had been just a dream. Wynne was still at Ostagar, as were Uldred and Nicola and Jarvic. And soon their newest mage – newly ordained and newly lost – would be there as well.

But that didn’t make what the dream Wynne had had to say any less true.

There was often truth in dreams. Painful, sometimes, but persistent. Mages knew that better than anyone. And Wynne, as he understood it, had always had a special affinity for the Fade. Who was to say that she hadn’t reached out across the distance to scold him after all?

It wouldn’t do to defy her, of course. Everyone in the tower knew better.

“Greagoir,” he muttered, getting carefully to his feet. “You have always been a dreadful nuisance.”

It was late into the night, but in Kinloch Hold no night was ever truly quiet. There was always someone up reading late by candlelight or spell, always some apprentice hard at study so as not to disappoint their mentor in the morning, or some senior enchanter hard at work on their own experiments during the only hours they could avoid the questions of their juniors. This night was no exception, and as Irving made his way down the curving corridors and up the stairs, level after level, he passed open doors through which light and warmth and the sound of scratching quills and murmured incantations could be heard.

And also, even at this hour, one heard the occasional chink of mail or plate as the templars on night duty tried to stay awake and alert as they paced, or snuck conversations with each other in the corner. Or, more rarely but not unheard of, shared a cup of mulled wine with an enchanter they had known for years, in some corner by a fire. In these late hours of the night, in quiet and shadows, it was easier to forget the walls the rules said should be there.

The Templar Quarters were quieter, but not totally silent. Greagoir enforced a quite military discipline in the matter of duty shifts and what he liked to call battle readiness, and this meant that his templars obeyed his edicts to get regular sleep, at regular hours. Irving could admit to himself that he went out of his way to remind his mages that they were free to keep any hours they liked in pursuit of their study partly as a way to make the contrast between them and the templars more stark. And if it meant the mages felt they had at least one thing in life better than their watchers, then that was all to the good.

“First Enchanter!”

A young templar just emerging from the dormitory of the junior ranks paused so as not to step into Irving’s path. Stripped of his armor and dressed only in longshirt and trousers, unembellished but of fine silk and cut, he looked... well, simply like a young man out for a stroll in his night clothes. A very young man. Hardly a threat to a mage.

How deceptive appearances could be. How deceptive they could be allowed to become.

“Good e’en, young man. Ah... Cullen, isn’t it?”

“Yes, First Enchanter. May I be of service?”

“No, no. Go back to your bed, or your dinner, or whatever it is you’re prowling about for at this hour. Don’t mind me.”

“It’s no bother, First Enchanter. It’s my job to mind you.”

“Yes, young man. I am aware.”

“No, I mean...” He reddened, and his hands moved jerkily as though he might have restrained himself from a larger nervous gesture. Or perhaps from instinctively reaching for absent weapons. Interesting how obvious the movement of hands could be without heavy gauntlets to obscure them. “I meant that I...”

“No need, young Cullen. You know I’m right, and I know your offer was an innocent one, and we both have other business to attend to, I’m sure.”

“I... yes, First Enchanter.”

Irving continued on, but was not entirely surprised when the young man spoke again before he’d made it more than a few steps.

“Excuse me, First Enchanter. I’m sorry, but I... uh... I was hoping you could answer a question for me.”

Irving turned back. “Yes?”

The young templar’s cheeks were not just rosy now, but rapidly approaching crimson, and he did not meet Irving’s eyes.

“Is it true... is it true that the Grey Warden...”

Ah yes. Now he remembered. Greagoir had wanted Cullen present at the Harrowing for more reasons than just garnering the lad some experience.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Irving said, sparing enough pity for the boy to not pretend to misunderstand. “Our newest member of the Circle has been taken away from us quite quickly.”

“So it’s true.” His shoulders drooped and he stared at the floor with a frown that seemed equal parts confusion and pain. “She’s gone.”

“So it would seem. And now, unless you have another question...”

“N - no, First Enchanter. Thank you. For telling me.”

Irving nodded and walked on. He didn’t hear the boy move again until he had already rounded the curve of the hallway, well past the point of sight. It was probably all for the best, of course, he told himself as he walked. After all, if the matter foremost on the young man’s mind, after an initiate of his own Chantry had been sent to Aeonar for scorning her vows, was to mourn the absence of his own temptation, then the lad had some serious thinking to do about his life.

Not that he had much of an option, of course. So few in the tower did.  

As he finally approached Greagoir’s door, Irving found himself wishing he’d brought his staff. Not for protection, or even for appearances. He was chagrined to find himself somewhat winded, the ache in his knee growing worse. Truly, old age was a cruel joke. To think a First Enchanter would find himself wishing to use his staff for a glorified walking stick. Maker’s breath, but wouldn’t Greagoir have mockery for that one! Though as Irving paused before Greagoir’s closed door to collect himself, he rather thought that there would be no mockery from the Knight-Commander tonight.

He knocked. When there was no reply, he raised his hand to conjure the wisp messenger that would have passed through the door to announce his presence, as was common when calling on a fellow mage, but caught himself at the last moment and lowered his hand with a sigh. On other occasions he might have enjoyed taunting Greagoir in such a fashion, but not tonight.

He knocked again. This time he heard a sound from within, as of someone slamming something heavy onto a table.

“Maker curse you, this had better be important,” Greagoir’s voice came muffled but obviously angry through the thick door.

“At the very least I’d like it to not be a waste of our time,” Irving replied, just loud enough to be sure he was heard through the door, but hopefully not in other rooms down the corridor.

Silence. After a few long moments, Greagoir’s voice came again, clipped and monotone. “It is not locked.”

Irving spared himself a moment to bury as much of his own frustration as possible, deep under resolve to his duty, and once he was sure his expression was more or less composed he let himself in.

In the decades he and Greagoir had played their balancing act in this tower, he had only been in the Knight-Commander’s personal suite a handful of times. Typically they met in Irving’s work study; as close to neutral territory as could be achieved while still maintaining some privacy. Certainly Greagoir had never been in the First Enchanter’s personal rooms. So Irving tried to keep in mind the courtesy Greagoir extended him, by allowing him entry here, as a counterbalance to the discourtesy of the turned back the templar commander was now showing him.

Unlike young Cullen, without his armor Greagoir still looked the knight. Even in the privacy of his own rooms, in the dead of night, he wore only the austere muslin tunic that would have gone under jerkin and plate. On his feet he wore sturdy leather boots, and a sword belt still girded his waist, though the weapon itself lay scabbarded on the table at which he sat – at hand as always – to the side of the closed book before him. The only sign to betray that he had been hermiting up here in a most uncharacteristic and unknightly manner was the disshevelment of his graying hair.

Irving watched Greagoir’s shoulders lift with visibly growing tension at his approach, and he sighed. “Let us have this out then, shall we?”

“I would rather not,” Greagoir replied, still not turning to look at him, resting a closed fist, with a slow and deliberately controlled movement, atop the closed book. “It shan’t be pretty.”

“Is it ever?”

“No flippancy, Irving. I am not in the mood.”

“Nor am I in the mood for _your_ mood. This is a peace offering, Greagoir. I suggest you take it.”

“Do you. How chivalrous of you.”

“I think I might choose to be offended by your choice of adjective,” Irving muttered, looking about for a chair. There were none, aside from the hard-backed wooden monstrosity in which Greagoir was now sitting. Did the man allow himself no comfort? He would have made a terrible mage, really.

Greagoir closed the fist resting on the book even tighter, and now Irving had drawn close enough to see the other man’s pale profile; his jaw was clenched taut enough for the strain to be seen even around his carefully trimmed beard. Irving rubbed once at the lingering itch in his own far less dignified beard before crossing his arms and planting his feet – trying not to think about his staff – to watch and wait the Knight-Commander out.

And there was indeed quite a wait before Greagoir finally spoke again. Still not looking at Irving, his hand still in a fist, he said, “You waited on purpose. You delayed.”

Irving could have pretended to need elaboration, could have forced Greagoir to spell out the many small ways in which he’d bought extra time before the Rite could be carried out on tragically foolish Jowan. But the sympathy he had chosen to extend to Cullen he extended also to the boy’s commander. Pity for the one, respect for the other. After all these years, respect; he couldn’t deny it.

And because it _was_ respect, he also chose not to lie.

“Yes,” he said. “I did.”

Greagoir worked his jaw for a silent moment, the knuckles of his fisted hand whitening. “Why?”

Irving sighed. “It doesn’t matter now, surely.”

Greagoir’s fist slammed so hard onto the book that it bounced on the table, and the gilded mouth of the scabbard rattled briefly against the hilt of his sword.

“ _Yes_ , Maker curse you! Yes, it does matter!”

“Greagoir,” Irving began.

“Do not use that _diplomatic_ tone of voice with me,” Greagoir snarled, turning finally to look at him as he lunged to his feet, pushing the heavy chair back. He jutted two violently accusatory fingers at Irving as he spoke, his pale eyes bright with anger and red with what was probably two nights of sleeplessness. “If you hadn’t delayed, if you hadn’t asked for more time to gather your _proof_ when we already had all the testimony we needed, this wouldn’t have happened! If you had acted on my word when I gave it, heeded my concerns, let me _do_ my _duty,_ there would not be a girl on her way to a cold life in Aeonar as we speak!”

“You are correct,” Irving replied, making no effort to warm his voice. He narrowed his eyes and held Greagoir’s gaze, unflinching and unashamed. “And that would not have been justice.”

“Justice?” Greagoir breathed, dropping his hand limply to his side. “Maker’s mercy, Irving. Is that what this was about? You were playing _games_ with this?”

“Not a game, Greagoir. Hardly something so trivial. I said justice, and I meant justice. Does your Chantry not preach parity in such matters? Jowan did not act alone. His sin was shared, and I meant for all the guilty to face the consequences. Yours as well as mine.”

“Vengeance, is it?” Greagoir said bitterly. “I did not think you so petty, Irving.”

“Nor I you, to blame me for the sins of one of your own. You would rather rant at me, would you not, than admit to weakness within your Chantry.”

“You insult me. I openly admitted that she had shamed us. I sent her to _Aeonar_ , for pity’s sake. Do not dare to imply that I balked when it came to sentencing one of my own!”

“And yet if I had come to you with word of her treachery, you would not have believed me. Admit it, Greagoir. You would have said testimony was not enough. You would have asked for _proof._   Would you have agreed to a delay then, Knight-Commander? Or would you have dismissed the accusation out of hand in your rush to judge a mage, and your willingness to excuse an initiate?”

“This is madness,” Greagoir said, but quietly, and he looked away as he said it; sure signs all. “These old arguments will prove our undoing, if we have let them bring us to this pass. A blood mage running free, slipped through our grasp like so much smoke. Why this tower at all, if we cannot make it serve its purpose?”

Irving clenched his teeth for a few seconds before answering, his hands tense in the folds of his arms. He felt very old tonight. Weary, and hurting over so many old pains. “Why the tower indeed,” he said at last, but only half bitterly. Despite his anger, he could not entirely dismiss Greagoir’s frustration. A large part of him shared in it. “But can we afford to dwell on the failure in this fashion, Greagoir? Would it not be best to take the lesson to heart and look forward?”

Greagoir scoffed, turning sharply on his heel and settling into a pattern of pacing that Irving found quite familiar, and which signaled that the most dangerous phase of his anger had passed.

“The lesson?” Greagoir echoed, clasping his hands tightly behind his back and shaking his head as he paced. “I don’t know if anyone but us actually learned anything from this, Irving. Lily was foolish, but also simply fooled – no wisdom there. The maleficar got what he wanted in the end, and the active accomplice was saved from punishment by a ridiculously outdated farce of a recruitment law. Only we are left to try to put something together from the pieces.”

Irving struggled not to sigh again. He could have made quite a critique of his colleague’s assessment, and would have in another situation. Imprisonment in Aeonar was quite the lesson. Jowan, for all that he had managed to destroy his phylactery, had only won himself a life of fear, leading ultimately to an ugly death, and lost the woman he loved. And conscription into the Grey Wardens was hardly a reward, whatever else it might be; some might think so, swayed by old tales, but Irving was a historian and he knew better. Even if it _was_ the best that could be hoped, in a bid for freedom.

“I will not forget this, Irving,” Greagoir said then, his voice measured and cool.

Anger had not been left so far behind, then. The First Enchanter accepted that he had perhaps underestimated how truly outraged the Knight-Commander was over this.

“I will not forget it either, never fear,” Irving replied neutrally. “I have indeed taken a lesson from it, if you care to know. And I do hope I’m not to take your proclamation as some sort of threat.”

That earned a loud and atypical snort from the templar. “I’d be a fool to threaten you.”

“Yes indeed. I am pleased you recognize this.”

“A fool, I said, because nothing so subtle as an open threat could possibly make it into that mad head. I must inform you that I _do_ hold you responsible for this, Irving.”

“Do you? Now that is interesting. I would say the same about you. Perhaps we are both mistaken? Or perhaps we are both correct.”

“Enough, I beg you!” Greagoir retorted, and his tone was only half wry, but at least it _was_ half. “Save it for your apprentices. For the moment I am willing to accept a gesture of good will on your part.”

“How generous of you,” Irving murmured, and was not surprised when Greagoir pretended not to hear him.

“I wish you to pick a mage to accompany the templars in the new search party to go out tomorrow. Someone to counter the blood mage’s spells.”

“How odd. All these years I’ve been led to believe that this was precisely what your templars were trained for.”

“I believe you said you did not want this conversation to be a waste of our time. Now is your chance to prove it.”

“And here I thought the fact we were even speaking to each other again proof enough. Oh, very well. Take senior enchanter Torrin,” he said, and was rewarded by Greagoir’s grimace; the Knight-Commander’s dislike for Torrin’s pontificating was well known in the tower. “And now if you’ll excuse me... I’m old and would like to get back to bed. I’m afraid I haven’t the templar’s rigorous training to support me in such vigils of the soul as these.”

“Yes, go.” Greagoir waved him off. “Spare us both.”

Irving shook his head, amused in spite of everything, and walked to the door but paused there.

“Greagoir,” he said somberly. “It could have been worse. It would be wise to keep this in perspective.”

Greagoir sighed and ran both hands down his face, a weary gesture he would have allowed none of his templars to see. “I shudder to think how it could have been worse, Irving.” 

Irving closed his eyes, feeling a pang of sorrow and bitterness. After standing witness to all those Harrowings, after being the one to strike all those killing blows against children... little more than children, those apprentices... the man could still say such a thing?

But perhaps even that grim task was not enough. Perhaps it took having endured the Harrowing itself, walked in the Fade, felt that evil clawing at the outside of your mind, at the inside of your body, trying to get in, to burst out, trying to take over, whispering and taunting with the knowledge of just how dark things could truly become...

Perhaps on some fundamental level, even a templar such as Greagoir, with all his experience, would never understand.

“Then if you feel the worst has happened, be at peace,” Irving said, not unkindly in spite of the dark turn to his thoughts. “And for pity’s sake, make an appearance outside this room in the morning. You are as much a part of the foundation of this tower as I, loathe though I am to admit it. Your self absorption shakes it more than any gossip about mysteriously disappearing apprentices could.”

“Yes, yes, point taken, lesson learned, whatever appeases you.”

“Most accommodating of you. Good evening to you, then.”

Irving stepped out and closed the door on Greagoir’s sigh, but the sigh itself was sign enough that the worst – of _this_ strife between them, at least – had passed.

Yes, Irving thought to himself as he made his way out of the Templar Quarters and back to his domains. It was good to remember that it could have been worse.

He did not regret his choice, even if it meant a blood mage had been loosed on the world. He had faith Jowan would be caught quickly; the boy wasn’t nearly smart enough to evade hunting templars for long.  

And he regretted that the apprentice he had most favored in easily a decade had not trusted him enough to report Jowan’s plan, but he had nonetheless gotten what he wanted for her, in spite of regrets and disappointments.

She was free.

It could have been worse indeed.        

  

~*~

  

They started with the bodies, and that had been such a long and painful task, that in the midst of it the thought of moving on to cleaning the tower itself had been a welcome one, something almost to look forward to.

Until they actually began it.

At first, Irving had instructed his mages to purge the tower with fire. Bulges of tainted flesh burst in the heat, explosions of corrupted pus and ichor. Tendrils blackened and curled in on themselves, writhing in the flames called forth by survivors who desperately needed to burn _something_ in an effort to scour their own memories clean.

But the smoke soon overwhelmed them, thick and dark, leaving streaks more like oil than soot along the ceilings and walls. Clouds of it hung heavy in the air, difficult to dispel even by conjured bursts of wind. Perhaps it was only fevered imagination that made it seem as though the smoke coiled more tightly around people than around objects, seeking to slide black fingers down into their lungs. It did not take long before even those most in need of the chance to strike back at the horror in some tangible way could no longer endure the caustic air, and were forced to abandon fire. 

Greagoir had watched, grim and silent, as weakened mages stumbled out of rooms filled with roiling smoke, coughing violently, their eyes streaming and their hands shaking, before they fell to their knees in defeat in the corridor or slumped against what uncorrupted stretches of wall they could find.

Then he turned and walked away, and when he returned some time later he came with a contingent of his templars in tow, none of them in armor, though all still wore their swords. They carried ladders, planks torn from broken shelves, chair legs, long trails of bed curtains ripped from their posts. The mages watched them go by in numb amazement, the lack of armor as shocking as their odd choice of armament. They watched as Greagoir ordered his men to begin tearing down the corruption by hand.

Touch the fleshy growths as little as possible with their exposed skin, he warned them. See to opening whatever windows could be reached, he instructed. Carry the foul refuse out in whatever makeshift slings could be made, and dump it on the boats waiting to take it to the burn site on the other side of the lake. If it took a thousand trips, then that was what it would take.

No one, mage or templar, had the heart to acknowledge in words that they had done almost exactly the same for the bodies of their friends. No one had yet found the time, or the spirit, to even mourn them.

No one except for himself, Irving thought. And he didn’t blame his mages; he understood all too well. Some griefs were simply too large for mourning. They had first to be comprehended, seen in their entirety, for real grief to begin. Those who had survived had not yet left the spaces of their horror behind, and for each of them that space took different form in their minds.

For some it was the halls where they had stood guard over the children, flinching at every sound, bodies and minds twisted so tight in anticipation that everything was pain as well as fear. For some it was the rooms where they had barricaded themselves behind furniture and stone and spells, fighting to keep _silent,_ oh so silent, as afraid to hear the voices of men and women they had once considered friends as they were to hear the keening of an approaching abomination. For some it was the memory, playing over and over, of the companions at whose side they had fought being torn apart before their eyes, just before the backlash of some spell sent them into a limp unconsciousness that ended up being their salvation.

The place in Irving’s mind from which he could not escape was unique:he was the only one to have survived the Harrowing chamber.

And the only mercy, the one thing for which he was grateful, was that no one else would carry that memory.

But he knew it would not be long before an accounting was required. Greagoir had not yet asked him any questions about it, had not pressed for details on anything that was not necessary to know for the immediate task of cleansing the tower. Irving had returned the favor, asking nothing about sealed doors or requests for Rights of Annulment that only bad roads had delayed. The bodies would quickly fester, the corruption was still present, and the Veil was still weak; until such matters were resolved, First Enchanter and Knight-Commander could set their questions aside.

In the weeks it took to tear down the fleshy, bulging growths infesting the tower, the rotating group of templars assigned to that unenviable labor were a sight to which none of the mages could quite become accustomed. Denuded of their armor to allow them freedom of movement for the physical task, their clothing quickly stained, revulsion pushing them to work in hurried silence, the steel-clad guardians whose presence had driven Uldred and his followers to madness now seemed much more... vulnerable.

Irving knew that Greagoir was perfectly aware of this, and he knew Greagoir well enough to guess it had not been an easy choice to make, exposing even a bare handful of his remaining templars in this fashion. It was a gift, and it was not lost on the First Enchanter. He saw to it that his mages returned the favor by putting them immediately to work on spells that would not fill the halls with choking smoke, but which ultimately served a more important function even than clearing the tower of physical corruption – spells to find the places where the Veil was weakest, and to seal them. 

It was going to be the work of months, there was no way around it. And until it was done, none of them – neither mage nor templar – could fully rest. Left to unravel further, those weak spots in the Veil would allow more spirits and demons through. It could not be permitted. No more.

The first night after Uldred was slain, Irving had walked every corridor of the tower, top to bottom, while the other survivors slept fitfully. Even healing magic had not fully dulled his pains, and he could not control his limp, but he did not allow it to stop him. He found every spot where the Veil was already torn, or about to fail, and he cast the preliminary sealing spells himself.

When it was done, he had found what was left of his bedroom, gratified to discover that his bed – bedposts and curtains and all – had survived intact. He drew the curtains, closing himself in the illusion of normalcy, and slept for what might have been a whole day, or two. No one woke him. He supposed he had Greagoir to thank for that as well.

The unspoken apologies were to come first, it seemed. The reckoning would come later.

  

 

~*~

  

“I don’t think it was a good idea to allow Wynne to leave,” Greagoir said, not for the first time. “We could use her here, now.”

“I agree,” Irving conceded, “but it was not my choice to make.”

“I distinctly recall hearing you give her permission to go, Irving.”

“Some assistance was due our savior, don’t you agree?”

Greagoir did not immediately reply, which was practically a generous gesture, given his complex and decidedly vocal feelings on their exiled apprentice turned Grey Warden. That he was also profoundly grateful for the rescue only made him _more_ difficult about it all.

“Still,” Greagoir said at last, in as close to a petulant mutter as his dignity would no doubt permit, “allowing even Wynne to go entirely free of tower supervision... I suppose it’s one matter in which we can be grateful for Denerim’s distance.”

But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he drew in a quick breath and then closed his jaw tight.

And though he had no real desire to go down this path, Irving could not be silent. “More than _one_ matter, perhaps,” he said. 

The silence that fell between them then was one of the worst Irving could remember, even recalling all those difficult confrontations and misunderstandings in the first years they had shared command of the tower.

The wind picked up just then, whistling over the lake like a weight moving over silk, and Irving was grateful for the way it cooled emotions as well as the skin. This far from winter it was, for Lake Calenhad, a comparatively warm breeze, but still chill enough to penetrate even the thick fabric of his robes. Irving folded his arms and tucked his chin slightly so that his beard covered the opening of his collar, but beside him Greagoir made no move and spoke no word, only squinted slightly into the breeze that pushed graying hair off his forehead. The First Enchanter had often wondered, in moments of idle curiosity, how uncomfortable it must be to wear all that armor, particularly in colder seasons. Surely all that metal could not insulate them from the chill of a wind such as this, no matter gambesons beneath.

They stood together at the crumbling edge of the Hold’s once impressive bridge. Further out in the lake, other isolated segments rose from the water, shattered by some past war. Even the portion that still remained attached to the tower was considered too unstable to allow for regular traffic, but that had never stopped young mages from daring each other to walk along it on the days they were permitted outside, and it did not stop the First Enchanter or the Knight-Commander from standing on it now.

They had come today to watch the last boatload of rotting corruption carried away. Far in the distance, on a stretch of the eastern shore by which no roads passed, the faint glimmer of fires could be seen. More clear was the column of dark smoke marring the afternoon sky.

They had burned the bodies of their dead in a different spot. That much at least could be given them – that their ashes should not mingle with the detritus of foul growth, and of blood-stained furnishings beyond salvaging.

“It is time we talked,” said Greagoir.  

“Ah.” Irving held his hands tucked firmly in his folded arms, for warmth and self control both. “Is it, now.”

Greagoir kept his gaze on the column of smoke, but his frown grew severe. “It is. I would be remiss in my duties not to seek an accounting of what happened in that chamber. You know this.”

“Is this a request, Knight-Commander, or a demand?”

“It is what you choose to make it, Irving. Choose.”

The final boat, heavy with its blood-soaked burden, had nearly reached the opposite shore. It was little more than a speck at this distance; some small, harmless insect scurrying across the surface of the water. Remove made so many things seem safer.

But not this.

Irving sighed and turned away, putting some space between them. “How well did you know Leorah, Greagoir?”

“Leorah? Not well. Should I have found her remarkable? Promotion of the mages is your business.”

Irving shut his eyes, then opened them again quickly when images he kept trying to forget rose up in the darkness behind closed lids. “Remarkable. Yes. You should have found her remarkable. As should I have done. I am shamed to admit I never saw her for what she truly was.”

Greagoir shot him a narrow, suspicious glance, though he said nothing.

“She was always skilled enough, but... uncertain,” Irving went on. “Lacking in confidence. When I gave her the rank of Senior Enchanter, I hoped that responsibility would... strengthen her. It did not. I almost regretted my choice. I thought perhaps I had made a mistake. With all my years of experience, I was surprised to have so misread the potential of her character. Hah!” The laugh, when it escaped him, was short and hoarse, and painful. “I am an old man, Greagoir. A foolish, blind old man.”

The corner of Greagoir’s mouth turned. “So I’ve often said. I regret that you haven’t heeded me.”

“So do I.” Irving pulled a hand from behind his elbow and held it to his face. “You have seen the Harrowing chamber at its bloodiest. Played a part in it. You think you have an idea what it was like, because of those failed Harrowings? Because you climbed those stairs to look at what was left of Uldred’s corpse? You do not know, Greagoir. What was done to them... was more than physical torment.”

Seized by a desire to move, as though it might distance him further from his memories, Irving paced away along the edge, then returned with another heavy sigh.

Greagoir stood motionless. With the weak sunlight on his armor and the gray in his hair, he seemed as much a part of the tower as any of it stone sculptures. A month ago Irving thought he would have imagined him a gargoyle, perched as a warning at the edge of a perilous drop. Now, he seemed an appropriate addition to the architecture. Irving did not like to think what that might imply about his own mental state.

“I know more about the training your templars receive than I would like,” Irving said, shaking his head. “Most of your men might have been inexperienced, but _you_ I know, Greagoir. You had experience enough to know what you were facing, with abominations. And you think that watching over all those Harrowings has granted you some insight. But I tell you now, the only insight it has allowed you is knowledge of how best to kill. Your templars are trained to deal with the aftermath only.”

“It is the aftermath that matters,” Greagoir replied, his voice low but firm. “It is the aftermath that destroys. How an arrow comes to be lodged in your chest does not alter the finality of death. Once the shaft has been loosed, it is too late to concern oneself with the condition of the archer.”

“Spoken as only one who has never faced a demon can.” 

“As I have fought my share of demons this last moon, Irving, I must assume you mean to cast an aspersion of a different nature,” Greagoir retorted, his tone sharpening.

“Do not make assumptions,” Irving said hoarsely. “Not about this. I have endured the revulsion and mistrust of templars for decades, watched them pale with hatred or fear whenever they contemplate a mage being confronted by a demon. How many of your callow knights imagine our journeys into the Fade as some erotic adventure, cavorting willingly with desire demons who would seduce us? How many think us all craven fools, weak willed and eager to fall? You strut these halls encased in steel. Your are _defined_ by what protects you. Armor, lyrium, these are your shields. To keep you safe from the _external._ ”

He could not stop pacing now, anger warming him against the chill wind, easing the ache in his leg that no amount of persistent healing spells could wholly cure.

“But we have no such safety, Greagoir. Not even the armor of our bodies is real. Every mage in this tower has faced a horror you will never understand, and proved themselves strong enough to face _naked_ to their very souls what your templars will confront only with armor and sword.”

“And yet they succumbed, Irving,” Greagoir said, turning at last to face him fully, his eyes disturbingly pale in a fading shaft of sunlight. “Your righteousness rings hollow.”

“No. No, Knight-Commander. They did not _succumb_. They were _turned._ They were broken. Tell me that you are not having young Cullen watched. Tell me that you do not understand what it means to be broken.”

Greagoir said nothing, his lips a thin line.

“What happened in that chamber was no beguilement, Greagoir. It was a violation.”

“Not all were victims, Irving.”

“Since when does the choice of the criminal mean the victim is to be blamed for their suffering?”

“Philosophy, Irving. I am sorry, but there is more at work here. You know what I need to hear from you.”

“You have heard all that I can give you. As I am the only survivor of what happened in that room, if you are doubting my assurances then you are doubting the state of _my_ soul. Speak plainly, if so. I am weary of dancing about it.”

“I have no doubts about... the state of your soul. I need to know if what happened in the Harrowing chamber happened in isolation, or if there are others we should be... watching.”

“Ah. And here I mistakenly believed you merely wished a lurid accounting.”

Greagoir’s eyes narrowed, and his voice went threateningly soft. “If you think so little of me, then our conversation here is done.”

Irving struggled to get control of his anger. It was coursing through him much more hotly than was deserved; he understood Greagoir’s needs perfectly well, and knew the Knight-Commander was asking nothing more than what duty demanded of him.

But while he could not falter before his mages, who needed him strong and whole and stable, and he could _not_ show weakness to frightened, jumpy templars... at least with the Knight Commander he could... but no.

If only Wynne were here. Maybe Greagoir was right. Maybe he shouldn’t have let her go.

Irving closed his eyes, and this time he let the memories come, rising up stark and bloody behind his lids.

“After going through the Harrowing, it is easy to fool yourself into believing that you will fear no mundane threat of the mortal world  again,” Irving murmured. The deep silence of the man at his side, not one creak of leather under the weight of steel, attested to Greagoir’s attention. “And yet Leorah was afraid of... spiders. Of failure. They think we don’t watch them as carefully as we do. There are days it is an amusement as much as it is a sadness.”

Greagoir made a soft noise, almost a snort, of obvious agreement. But Irving couldn’t bring himself to smile.

“Afraid of spiders, Greagoir. Afraid of her own power, some days. But when Uldred was breaking them... one after another... when he came to her, I could see what he was thinking. He thought she would be easy to break. Easy to turn.”

Irving opened his eyes, but it didn’t matter now; he could still see Leorah’s slender, white hands perfectly clearly in his mind, spattered with blood, shaking, and clutching at the cracks in the flagged floor. _Can’t have me. Not here. My home. Not me._  Her knuckles bulging with the force of her grip, her nails blackening under lightning.

“She fought, Greagoir. She fought with a ferocity that would have shamed any of your templars. I watch them in ways you do not. My mages. I am... their First Enchanter. Sometimes the elves come to us with the alienage so deep under their skin that it takes years to wear away the hate and the fear. You can see in them what it took to survive, before they came to us. Never with Leorah. But I wonder now, Greagoir. Too late. I wonder what she fought through before coming here. The others... in the end, they all pleaded to be set free from the pain, even if it meant losing their souls. But Leorah died at his feet, fighting to the last. Her defiance made him... so much less.”

He turned, his arms folded again, but this time steadily; a shield and a defiance of his own rather than a protection against the cold. He met Greagoir’s eyes, and said, “But it was not enough to save her.”

Greagoir looked as though he wished to reply, but he kept his silence for a long moment. Then he frowned, gave a slight shake of his head, and finally said coolly, “You were forced to watch out of spite? Saved for last, I imagine?”

“I imagine,” Irving echoed, relieved to have managed a fair approximation of the dry tone he would normally have used for an uncomfortable conversation with the Knight-Commander.

“You realize you have not, in fact, given me a full accounting of what transpired.”            “I believe that I have.”

“Mm.”

“As much as you have given me a full accounting of what transpired beyond the doors you locked.”

Leather did creak now, as Greagoir drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment before responding. “Senior Enchanter Leorah was not the only one to die fighting, Irving.”

In the distance, on the far shore, the column of black smoke bulged and burst, swirling briefly against the clear sky before coalescing once again. Some collapse of fouled furniture in the bonfire, perhaps.

The flames had burned steadier, when they burned the bodies.

Greagoir turned from the crumbling edge of the bridge and began walking back toward the doors, steel footsteps falling heavily on stone.

“Done so soon, are we?” Irving asked of his back, making no effort to mask the shift from wry to bitter.

Greagoir did not look back. “We are. For now.”

“I had not thought you a man afraid to say the words, Greagoir.”

Greagoir stopped. Irving imagined that, had he not been encased in that armor, he would have been able to see the man’s shoulders stiffening. He knew the Knight-Commander well.

But Greagoir surprised him. Without so much as a shake of the head, and wordless, the templar resumed his stride, pushed open the door, and disappeared into the Tower.

Irving stood alone, his cheeks above his beard numbed by the wind, and watched the far shore until the darkness of falling night hid the column of smoke from view. Only the distant glow of a dying fire remained by the time he turned and followed the Knight-Commander into the Tower.   

           

           

~*~

  

“I’ve read in the memoirs of First Enchanter Hayman in his chapter on Advanced Elemental Channeling that trying to distinguish between fine control of air and electricity is extremely difficult when working within the traditional boundaries of the tempest schools. He described it like trying to grab at silk threads in the rain, but I’m not really sure what that means seeing as how I’ve never actually felt rain, because that one time in the wagon on the trip here hardly counts since they wouldn’t let me out to walk in it because they said I’d slow us down. And then he said failure to separate the two was incredibly painful, and recommended training under the effects of mild intoxicants to guard against unnecessary muscle strain. Is this true? How does it feel, exactly? The painful part, not the intoxication. Though, does that really help? Maybe you’d be willing to experiment, for the purposes of research?”

Kinnon was staring down at Dagna with such a stupefied expression, so obviously at a loss for words, that it was all Irving could do not to chuckle as he passed.

It was good, in truth, to want to laugh again. And he wasn’t the only one. All around him, his mages were stretching under the sun, rolling up their sleeves or hitching up their skirts, drifting apart singly or in small groups to find a place in the green field where they could relax and enjoy the fresh air. Under the watchful eyes of the templars, of course. Always. But even the templars were clearly relishing this excursion. Not a one wore a helmet, and for the first time since the nightmare had overcome them all, Irving saw one or two templars smiling at mages with whom they had previously been courteous, if not friendly, and he saw his mages return smiles. Hesitantly, perhaps, but even these small signs were welcome.

Though no one, mage or templar, was as obviously delighted as Dagna.

She had not flinched even once in helping them clean and repair the tower, though most of the work had been done before her arrival. Perhaps she had seen such foul growths before, on the edges of the Deep Roads; Irving had not yet had the chance to ask her. Nor did she show any sign of restlessness at being cooped up behind tower walls; undoubtedly a dwarven comfort with the feeling. But the others were eager for the excursion from the Tower, and Dagna clearly believed that happy tongues were more likely to wag. Evidently, no one had been feeling talkative enough since her arrival to fully satisfy her curiosity. Her curiosity seemed bottomless.

Irving was glad for her presence, in many ways. Young apprentices being harried by a cheerful, persistent interrogator were less likely to be found huddled in a corner hiding from their own memories.

“I’m a bit confused, though, how cascading degeneration effect in higher level entropic study bears any similarity to working with the lightning branches of the elemental schools, which Hayman clearly states in his later entries on the subject. Maybe – ”

“I’m sorry, but _what_ exactly, in the Maker’s name, are you _talking_ about?”

And Kinnon was usually so unflappable, too. A more merciful man might have rescued the lad, but Irving just left him behind to stand gaping in the sunlight with Dagna. He figured it could only be good for the boy.  Mundane frustrations could be healthy, after what they had all endured.

Much about this excursion would be good for them. It was why he had insisted on it, and why Greagoir had so readily agreed.

Two children ran past him, so close that he was forced to stop more heavily on his weaker leg than he would have liked. But the youngsters no more noticed his wince than they did his presence, the boy chasing after the girl and howling in rage while she giggled. It was the first giggle Irving had heard in what felt like an age, and he was willing to pay for it with a throbbing knee.

 The sound of a heavy sigh announced Petra’s approach in the children's wake. “I’m sorry, First Enchanter,” she said. “I keep telling them to watch where they’re going, but it’s been so long since we were outside... and after... ”

“I understand, child,” Irving said, giving her a smile.

She did not seem to notice, her face trained on the two children as they ploughed on through the tall grass. Her eyes were shadowed by memory, as too many of his mages’ eyes were.

“I just don’t have the heart to tell them to stop,” she said, and finally turned to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

Irving put a hand on her shoulder, and felt her slump under the weight of it, leaning slightly forward into the heel of his palm as though hoping he could hold her up by touch alone. “Do not be sorry, Petra. I understand. And there is no need to tell them to stop. Let them... run.”

They were not running from demons. They were not trapped within walls awaiting death at the hands of former friends, or former guardians.

Let them run as much as they liked, under the light of the sun.

The little girl shrieked as her pursuer finally caught up, and they collapsed into a thick bed of clover in a tangle of struggling limbs. The sound was truly horrendous. Irving would never understand how such small bodies could manage to produce such a great volume of noise.

Petra straightened under his hand with a frown, her eyes losing all sense of shadow and sharpening with annoyance. “On the other hand,” she muttered, and stalked off toward them. “All right, you two, unless you want me to find where they’ve abandoned the freezy chair, you’re going to cut that out right – Rannon! Get _back_ here!”

Irving left Petra to her hopeless mission and moved on, the hem of his robes rustling through the tall grass. He couldn’t stop himself from taking a head count of his mages as he walked among them. Too few. Far too few. He only wished he were old enough to be spared the sharpness of memory which allowed him to catalogue so clearly every face lost. And he wished he hadn’t spent the last few weeks so diligently trying to piece together which of those lost faces had been Uldred’s willing accomplices.

All of them unwilling in the end, of course, once the demons took over. That was the way of demons and corruption. But it had all started somewhere.

It had started with his mages.

Maker, but he hated having to cede anything to Chantry doctrine.

Almost none of the Senior Enchanters had survived. They had been killed by Uldred, or died defending the others. Or they had turned, and died at the hands of the Grey Wardens. Their loss was a terrible blow on many levels, and it preyed on his mind that it would also make fulfilling his promise to the Wardens more difficult, and more dangerous. He had begun to wonder more seriously, in the doubting hours of the night, if Greagoir hadn’t been right about letting Wynne go. There was no denying Irving could have used her help.

The breeze, scented with newly opening flowers, picked up strength for a moment, and Irving paused to close his eyes and breathe deeply of it, letting it thread gentle fingers through his beard.

“First Enchanter.”

He stiffened at the voice – the too calm, too level voice. It was an unworthy reaction, and the fact that Owain would not be offended by it only made it more unforgivable. Irving had never admitted it to anyone, not even to Wynne, but he had always marked every mage made Tranquil as a personal failure of his leadership, no matter the vital role they played in the daily functioning of the Circle. Or perhaps partly _because_ of it. Too much of exploitation about it.

But now, it was something more.

There were nearly as many Tranquil wandering the glade today as there were mages, and the numbers had never before been so balanced.

“Owain,” Irving acknowledged the Tranquil mage, making a real effort to put some warmth into his voice.

“First Enchanter, when will we return to work?”

“We all need some time to recover still, Owain. Even the Tranquil.”

“We need no time to recover, First Enchanter. We are not suffering the way the other mages still are.”

Irving studied the man’s face for a few moments, a heavy weight in his chest that prevented him from finding words. Owain just stared at him, unblinking, his hands clasped placidly before him. Like a child standing dutifully before a teacher. Had he stood this way in the corner of the storeroom as the abominations roved past?

Irving knew some of the Tranquil had been killed. Some of them had been tortured. Pure malice, that. The worst part was knowing it would have been the lingering humanity in the abominations, vestiges of their former selves, responsible for perpetrating those acts of torment; the Tranquil were unable to feed the demons with their fear, and so should not have made appealing victims. Though perhaps mere pain was enough? 

But Irving suspected it was precisely their inability to fear that had spared so many of the Tranquil. They were not without their instincts of self-preservation, and hiding in corners or cupboards – silently, frozen, but without the agonizing terror – had meant that the demons passed most of the Tranquil by.

Irving tried not to view it as a judgment passed on the strength of his mages that there were now almost as many Tranquil in the tower as not. And he tried not to imagine what some of the templars might be thinking of that new balance.

“First Enchanter?” Owain spoke again, still staring into his eyes. “Will we be able to return to work?”

“Soon,” Irving said, then sighed and put a hand on Owain’s shoulder as he had with Petra, though he knew the gesture would be mostly wasted here. “Soon enough, Owain. I will have you work on repairs to the tower before you need concern yourself with wares to sell.”

“Should we not be crafting new staves, First Enchanter?”

“Hm?” Irving dropped his hand, frowning. “Why would you ask?”

“For the war effort, First Enchanter. To fight the darkspawn. They say you have pledged the Circle to aid the Grey Wardens.”

Irving sighed again, and for once allowed his expression to slip his control. Regret, worry, frustration. Fear for the future. Owain wouldn’t feel less secure to see the First Enchanter display his doubt.

“Yes, of course,” he murmured. “Staves for the war. You are quite right, Owain. I suppose taking too much time to rest could be dangerous. If you are... well enough... ”

“We are well, First Enchanter.”

“I see. Then you may resume your work.”

Owain began immediately to turn away, obviously about to head back to the tower, and Irving put a hand on his shoulder again, this time to stop him.

“ _After_ today’s excursion, Owain. After. I want you and the other Tranquil to spend some time in the sun. Do you understand?”

“Yes, First Enchanter.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

He walked on, even when his knee began to feel stiff and more inflamed than usual, moving from mage to mage, giving what words of comfort or encouragement he could. Most of them responded well. A few were still too haunted for anything so mundane as gentle words to reach them, but it warmed him to see that no one in that latter group was being left isolated by their fellows; all were surrounded by at least one or two companions, even if conversation there was scarce.

Irving realized that he was being shadowed at least an hour before he chose to acknowledge it. When he turned at last to face his pursuer, he was disturbed to find that young Cullen met his gaze defiantly, with not a hint of embarrassment at having been caught.

“Can I help you, young man?”

There was quite some distance between them, so Irving could not be sure if a sound accompanied the templar’s scowl. But he could well imagine.

“No,” Cullen said curtly. “I’m just watching.”

“Indeed. More than usual.”

“Not without cause.”

“Perhaps. But I feel the need to remind you, young Cullen, that I am still the First Enchanter here. And that means I am still afforded the small prerogatives of authority. I choose to exercise one of these now, by instructing you to find another man to follow.”

“You can’t command – ”

“I believe you’ll find he can, Cullen.”

Irving allowed himself some petty satisfaction that he did not startle as Cullen did at the sudden interjection of Greagoir’s voice. He at least had the excuse of having had his back turned to the Knight-Commander’s approach; that Cullen had not noticed was yet another disturbing testament to the dangerous narrowness of his focus.

“But Knight-Commander, he – ”

“I am quite through being questioned by you,” Greagoir said, coming to stand beside Irving, on whom the positioning was not lost. “I have been patient and sympathetic to your concerns, but I will not tolerate this continuing defiance of authority. The First Enchanter commands the Circle. Your duty is to the Order, and as the Knight-Commander I am instructing you to remember what that duty entails.”

Cullen worked his jaw in pale-faced silence for a few moments, then finally bowed and said, “How may I do my duty, Knight-Commander?”

“You can start by returning to the post I assigned you on perimeter watch. Further   dereliction of duty will result in severe discipline. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Knight-Commander.”

“Good. Go.”

Cullen thumped a fist to his breastplate in salute and left them. Irving waited until he was sure the young man was well out of earshot before sighing – a sound which turned quickly to a chuckle when he heard Greagoir sighing in tandem with him.

“Maker, but he is trying my patience,” Greagoir muttered.

“He suffered quite an ordeal.”

“And your generosity makes me suspicious.”

“Knowing you are just as irritated makes me feel more magnanimous.”

“Somehow that does not surprise me.”

“Walk with me for a time, Greagoir. It will be good for appearances.”

“I am informed that the healing treatments on your leg have not been entirely effective,” Greagoir said, though he fell into step with Irving without hesitation.

“I am impressed as ever by the efficiency with which you gather information. I’ve yet to determine which of my mages have been bribed into serving as your informants, though not, I assure you, for lack of trying.”

“I do not need spies, Irving. I am merely vigilant.”

Irving made an impolite noise of disbelief. “And does your vigilance extend beyond the tower’s walls? Have you heard any word of Wynne?”

“I have never waylaid your correspondence. If she has sent messages to you, you should have received them.”

Irving fought the urge to roll his eyes as he might have with an upstart young apprentice too stubborn and defensive for easy discourse. “I meant messages from your Order, Greagoir. Word on the Wardens’ activities. Surely the templars are maintaining _vigilance._ ”

Even just out of the corner of his eye, Irving could see Greagoir frown. When the silence stretched between them without any further reply from the Knight-Commander, Irving looked to him with raised eyebrows.

Greagoir would not meet his gaze.

“We are a long way from Denerim,” the templar said at last.

But before Irving could respond, Keili approached them, moving swiftly through the grass, her hair wild and her cheeks pink with the sun’s warmth. Which did not fully counterbalance the unhealthy gleam in her eyes. 

“Knight-Commander,” she said breathlessly, sparing not a single glance for Irving. “Please, Knight-Commander, would you be so good as to pray with me?”

“Mage... Keili, yes?”

“No, Knight-Commander. I’m not a full mage yet. I do not wish to be. I was hoping you would hear my plea in this as well. I was thinking that perhaps I could be made – ”

“Enough!” Greagoir barked.

Irving, who had been bracing himself against the revulsion inspired in him by the plea he knew she was about to make, blinked in surprise.

Keili’s reaction was many times his own; she stumbled back as though physically struck, her hands fluttering up to her chest in an attitude of prayer.

Greagoir drew in a deep breath through his nose, obviously steadying himself, but his eyes and voice remained hard as he said again, “Enough. You have free access to the Chantry for prayer. Make use of it when we return to the tower. I cannot assist you.”

“I... I... yes, Knight-Commander.” She backed away slowly, then turned and broke into a run. She was quickly caught by Kinnon, however, who had apparently escaped Dagna and now guided Keili firmly into a group of younger mages.

Irving settled back with his weight mostly on his good leg and folded his arms to inspect Greagoir’s gray expression. “I would have thought you would have more admiration for her piety.”

“Self loathing is never admirable,” Greagoir snapped.

But he still would not meet Irving’s eyes, and that said much. “Are you speaking from experience, Knight-Commander?”

Greagoir settled a gauntleted hand on the pommel of his sword. His gaze was fixed on the distant silhouette of the tower rising up from the placid lake.

“You think I regret my choice?” he asked.

Irving hesitated, then decided that they had, indeed, come to the moment, and said quietly, “Do you?”

Leather creaked as Greagoir’s hand tightened around the blunt pommel. No stone or ornamentation on this sword. Not for this man.

“What do you wish me to say, Irving? I cannot give an answer that will please you.”

“Honesty would please me.”

“Would it.”

“I think it is necessary.”

“To restore trust?” Greagoir said, turning to face him at last, and there were cracks in his expression, hinting at something uncomfortable and raw beneath. “I do not know if that is truly possible, Irving. Not in full.”

“Then we must make it possible,” Irving replied, a bit surprised to realize that he meant the words. “We must, Greagoir. It cannot be easier to close the rifts in the Veil than it is the rifts between mage and templar. If that is true, then we are truly doomed.”

Greagoir sighed, and it was a testament to either weariness or depth of emotion, perhaps both, that he raised his free hand to his face and rubbed at his forehead in full view of anyone who might be watching them. At least there was no one near enough to listen.

“It is a long journey to Denerim,” the Knight-Commander said from behind his hand. “But the Order has courier posts. Remounts. People to carry the message on. I... expected to receive the word sooner. The darkspawn, the blasted civil war... Maker forgive me, that I should find any cause to feel grateful for war.”

“Grateful? And yet you were the one to lock the doors, Greagoir.”

“Do not. Do not, Irving. I have been unbending before my men, and I have every right and obligation to show no weakness to our... your mages. But do not so diminish me as to pretend I made the decision lightly.”

Irving let the anger build for a moment, just one indrawn breath, and then forced it down and let it go. “I know you would not have made it lightly,” he allowed.

“Do you wish me to admit... to accept... very well,” Greagoir said roughly. “I admit that it was... painful. It was... I could...”

Not in three decades had Irving ever seen Greagoir’s composure so broken. He found it unexpectedly disturbing.

“Two days after I closed the doors,” Greagoir said, his voice low but abruptly steady once again, “we heard a banging on the other side. We thought it was an abomination, certainly. But eventually we could make out voices. Recognize them. That was when I knew Wynne was still alive, and that I had locked her inside.”

Irving closed his eyes, and for the first time allowed himself to imagine what it might have been like in Greagoir’s position. It did not, in the end, make him feel more forgiving. But he did have some idea what it would have cost the Knight-Commander to have heard Wynne’s pleading, to have ignored it then, and to admit to it now.

Greagoir slowly pushed the tips of metal-clad fingers back through his grayed hair, his eyes bleak.

“It is the innocent people of Ferelden who matter. That’s what I told her.”

Irving did not know if he meant Wynne or their apprentice turned Warden, but chose to exercise mercy and did not ask. Perhaps he meant both. Perhaps more. The words had an air about them of something a man might tell himself, often, when sleep would not come.

“I have never tolerated comments casually made about the Right of Annulment, from any of my templars. I never shall.”

Greagoir dropped his free hand and closed it into a fist as tight as the one still firm around his sword, and met Irving’s gaze.

“But I would invoke it again, Irving. If necessary, I will.”

“Necessary,” Irving repeated softly.

“If those abominations had escaped the tower... ”

“I understand, Greagoir. I do not... agree. But I do understand.”

“Agreement. If only it were that simple a matter.”

Irving smiled wanly. “If only.”

They stood together, side by side but silent, for what felt like a very long time.

Around them, small groups of mages broke apart and reformed, but always at a respectful distance. A few of the younger apprentices struck up a game involving teams and an attempt to catch spell wisps conjured by laughing older mages. When one of the wisps circled once around a rigid templar, and the apprentices did not hesitate to run a tight ring around him while the templar could be seen to heave a deliberately large sigh that flashed sunlight off his pauldrons, Irving felt a tension in him begin to ease at last.

This was not harmony; he was not so old or traumatized as to be deluded into believing that. It was not harmony, it was not a guarantee on the future, and it went only as deep as the sun’s warmth on skin for men and women who only rarely escaped stone walls to bask in it. But after what they had all endured, he would take this day in the green and the sun, fleeting and illusory though it might be.

A sudden shriek went up at the far edge of the glade, shattering the moment, and Irving turned to see Cullen holding Rannon by the arm while the boy tried wildly to kick out at the templar’s shins.

Greagoir sighed. “He was probably trying run past the perimeter.”

“Undoubtedly. And yet.”

“And yet,” Greagoir agreed with another sigh.

“How much time to you intend to give Cullen before you decide whether or not he will recover?”

“I don’t know. He is... a good lad. He showed promise. If I cannot help him here, then perhaps he can serve the Order elsewhere. I will give it some time.”

Petra was striding angrily toward Cullen now, and Irving knew Greagoir would recognize the way her hand was curling at her side as the precursor to the gathering of magical energy.

They began moving at the same moment. Maker, for the day to end like this...

And then Dagna was there, popping up behind Cullen so suddenly that the young templar jerked to the side in obvious astonishment. As he and Greagoir drew nearer, Irving could hear her talking.

“ – is always healthy, but I’m not sure if that’s true. Anyway, maybe you could help me out with that?  It’s not often that a dwarf gets infected by lyrium madness, but I’ve seen it happen. There’s this merchant in the commons... but never mind! If you’d help me with some experiments – just testing some conditions you understand – I could whip together some pieces – can’t be a smith’s daughter your whole life and not pick up at least a few things! If we could actually document the effect a templar’s abilities might have on material enchantments we could learn so much about the way lyrium composition is altered in the crafting process. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Cullen was gaping at her, Rannon dangling – apparently forgotten – from his hand. Even Petra had come to a halt, her advance leeched of all combative fire.

“Andraste spare us,” Greagoir muttered. “What have you gotten us into with this dwarf, Irving?”

“I don’t know,” Irving said, scratching at his beard and smiling the first heartfelt smile that had come to him since before Uldred. “But I think it might have been the best choice I’ve made in a long time.”

“Not much of a threshold to beat, First Enchanter.”

“I’ll take what I can get, Knight-Commander.”

Greagoir snorted, openly, and then stalked off, already barking Cullen’s name.

Irving stayed behind, no longer concerned.

Yes, he would take what he could get. The scent of sun-warmed grass, a breeze off the lake, and no sign of corruption in sight, no rips in the Veil to sense. Petra dragging Rannon away, Dagna in their wake.

Greagoir, restoring order.

The First Enchanter of Ferelden’s Circle was not a religious man. He had yet to meet a First Enchanter who was. But he knew when a certain measure of gratitude was appropriate.

He would be grateful for today, and let tomorrow be a worry for another day.

Sometimes, that could be enough. 


End file.
